Exploitation of workers has intensified after returning to work amid the Covid-19 pandemic. When the Duterte regime allowed selected industries to reopen last May, it did so without requiring capitalists to test workers and ensure their health and safety in the workplace. Since then, it has only released two non-compulsory orders where companies were merely […]

Third part of the series on the Duterte regime’s borrowing binge. Read the first part, “Pandemic borrowing binge,” in Ang Bayan, August 21, 2020; second part, “Predicament to be caused by Duterte’s borrowing spree,” Ang Bayan, September 7, 2020. Much like Duterte today, the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos colluded with imperialist financial institutions to fund […]

Progressive representatives scrutinized and questioned the Duterte regime’s proposed budget for 2021 this month. Representatives from the Makabayan Bloc highlighted the bloated allocations for the military, as well as for Rodrigo Duterte’s office and agencies under it. These include a nearly 3,000% budget increase for the Na­tio­nal Task Force-ELCAC, ₱206-billion increase for the De­partment of […]

State agents mercilessly killed Ro­lan­do Patiño Ley­son, Sr., 78, last September 12 in Ba­ra­ngay San Ped­ro, Si­son, Surigao del Norte. Five armed men raided his house and shot him 20 times. Leyson was targeted just because his son is a known New People’s Army (NPA) commander in the province. Earlier on September 8, tricycle driver […]

The Support to Parce­liza­ti­on of Lands for Indivi­du­al Tit­les (SPLIT) program of the Department of Agriculture (DA) will only aggravate landlessness in the countryside, said the Ki­lu­sang Mag­bu­bu­kid ng Pi­li­pi­nas (KMP) in a statement last September 7. The program will be funded using an ₱18.3-billion loan from the World Bank. It is set to cover […]